Faculty of the Department of Biology are implementing a new capstone course in their Environmental Science Program Environmental Impact Assessment. This upper-division course is available as a 3-semester-hour course for non-science-majors or a 4-semester-hour laboratory course for science majors. Students, working in teams that include both science majors and nonmajors, are confronted with a simulated scenerio in which industry (e.g., a PCB removal facility, a battery recycling facility, a chicken-processing facility, etc.) seeks to locate its operation adjacent to Panther Creek, the major drainage system of Daviess County, Kentucky. Laboratory students characterize information (hydrographic features, substrate composition, riparian/emergent vegetation, and cover) and collect data (stream velocity, loading capacity, temperature, pH, conductivity, heavy metal levels, invertebrate numbers/diversity, fish fauna numbers/diversity, and allozymic variation of select invertebrates and fishes) at the site(s) of potential impact, over 3 months. All students learn data management, data analysis, and data presentation. Each team prepares a written document, an Environmental Impact Assessment. Different students assume leadership roles according to the teams' activities (physical, chemical, biological, computer work, statistical analyses, research, and writing). This project provides flowmeters, remote monitoring /sampling equipment, a computer system, and appropriate software, electroshocking equipment, and a glass-door refrigerator for electrophoretic separation of enzymes. Results of the didactic aspects of this course and environmental data can be presented by faculty and students at the annual meetings of the Kentucky Academy of Sciences. *
